


Galdr

by Teawithmagician



Series: The Rising Sun Chronicles [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Adventure, Dark Magic, F/M, Fantasy, Het, Love/Hate, Magic, Original Fiction, Pirates, Rough Sex, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 15:59:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5503901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teawithmagician/pseuds/Teawithmagician
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Princess Nikteb is finally back to Scorch, she — and Zathan, the warlord of the sea-rovers, who promised her his help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Galdr

Nikteb stood on the deck of Zathan's fleet scoutship, Zathan himself standing right behind her, holding his hand at her shoulder.

"So this is the land you are from," said Zathan. Nikteb looked at him with the corner of the eye, not saying anything, but smiling haughtily. Zathan's scarred, bronzed face looked handsome in the frame of black and white braids, tied with snake skin and leather bands. He was a violent man, but he wasn't afraid neither of gods nor of demons. For him, anything was but a challenge, especially if the price was high enough, and it was.

Zathan wore long skirt of dark leather and red clothing, kept together by a wide belt, fastened by clasps. The clasps bore the faces of the demons and malevolent spirits, which tended to appal the enemies (in truth, noticeably less than Zathan himself) and kept his sword and two daggers together. Zathan's abordage vest, decorated with tanned suns and moons, clanged when Zathan moved because of the chain-mail, attached on the inside. Zathan kept the spyglass at his waist near the sword and daggers as had observed the desert shore long enough to notice there were still nothing but wrecked ships, broken ancient statues of women with snake tails instead of legs and signs of many fires, smoking above the remote dunes behind the palms.

"This is a land I am a princess of," answered Nikteb distantly. She sensed the disturbance of the land and time, the desolation couldn't spread over the Scorch and its colonies that fast, but the more Nikteb was concerned with than she borrowed Zathan's glass to make sure there was nobody ashore, she saw no dead bodies. Wreckages, torn guardians' tents, long shields and spears lying on the staircase from the fishermen's barracks to the Judge of the Docks hall; a lot of blood, but not a single body. The wreckages drove Nikteb's attention seemed to be several years old, but the rest of the destruction was much more recent, as though something happened hours before they arrived, but still — where were the bodies?

"What do you think about it?" asked Nikteb, hadn't come to any conclusion. Zathan was interested with the stories of numerous treasures lying beneath the sands of Scorch, also with a possibility to raid and plunder the prodigious shores told to be guarded by the Power of a Living God where no corsair set his foot before. A warlord of sea rovers needed to confirm his title by giving his people enough loot, always searching for more gold and more land. Nikteb was the first Scorch descendant who broke out the mysterious kingdom unnoticed by Lizards, the deadly Pharaoh's spymasters, so she was the most important source of information about the true condition of Scorch coffers and army, which, to be honest, on the one hand, wasn't protected with Pharaoh's powers, being poor enough, but on the other was insufficient to protect Scorch true richnesses.

Nikteb was clever enough to never chatter in taverns with rascals, she kept what she knew for a man who could make use of it, and if Zathar couldn't, Nikteb didn't understand anything about the people. It wasn't easy to convince him, but Nikteb, in her turn, wasn't a nameless tramp, telling fairytales in exchange for some food and wine. She was a sorceress taught by the mysterious witches of the North, learned the rites of the shamans of the mountain tribes, watched the abandoned jungle cities filled cruel dances of the dead... In other words, Nikteb was a mercenary who fought by magic and not by sword, managed to get the most prominent and mysterious reputation a woman in her late twenties could gain by making several unpleasant mistakes, but not letting her victories pass unnoticed, and that was enough to, at least, keep Zathan interested.

"By the bones of the sea, it's a trap," Zathan spat in the waves, and the waves swallowed. Sky darkened quickly, and the wind blowing from the desert smelled with decay, slowly pulling the scoutship towards the inhospitable, forsaken shores. "Somebody wants us to moor, somebody smelling like a hell of corpses. So if it is what he wants, it is what I don't."

Zathan commanded to change course, but the steering wasn't able to obey. The wheel spun like insane, containing the rage of thousands of demons, breaking from the steering's hands. The wind blew harder and harder, making the sails flap anxiously in the wind, anticipating the storm. Something was coming out of the desert, something that chose the form of a giant dust cloud, and the horizon soon was lost in its brown yellow flickering.

Zathan's people ran on the deck, pulled the sails, threw themselves on the wheel, which many handles broke their fingers and faces as their tried to get hold of it. The water boiled under the shipboard and the wood rotten, quickly covering with creeping mold and holes, soon to be filled with squirming teredos, appearing out of nowhere to get its part in the destruction of boards and sheathing. The ship was dying as though the lifeless breath of its dead fellowships, lying ashore, poisoned its steadiness and weakened the firmness of the tempered wood.

"I came to this cursed shores," hissed Zathan, clenching Nikteb's shoulder, "only because I had a witch to drove away the dark powers, settled in the land. Now do your job, or before my ship will touch the bottom, I will have your throat cut by my own hand."

Looking into the face of the warlord, filled with tremendous yet cold anger, Nikteb knew it was exactly he was going to do in case she wouldn't succeed, but she wasn't going to lose. The time she was a helpless girl not realizing the true power her body contained because of the terrible deal her forefather, the First Pharaoh of Scorch, made with the gods, had passed: Nikteb was old enough to cope with the danger she faced. She took off her cloak and grabbed her staff with entwined snakes, holding an emerald crystal in their mouths at the top of it, and knocked with it on the deck with anger and impatience. This time, she wouldn't cry and beg, this time, she was going to make this damned land, her kingdom, to feel what she was really capable of.

Taking the spellbook in red morocco cover from her belt, Nikteb opened the dark gold lock, keeping the pages together, and saw the words written with the letters looked more like vicious spiders and poisoned snakes, creeping the withered parchment. They were violently trying to sting each over and Nikteb's fingers, but she knew their habits and wore thick gloves, protecting her hands from their anger. It hurt even to look at those words, and when Nikteb chanted from the spellbook, she felt like those poisoned words were cutting her from the inside with all those stings and claws, but the magic was never easy — if gold and land was Zathan's price, so then Nikteb's price was power, and, no matter how it hurt, she would never lose hold of it.

The lightning struck with red, crackling bloody skies, as the water proceeded to boil, but the shipboard was no more corrupting. The wheel slowly steadied, and the steering finally got hold of it with his crooked, bleeding fingers. The sails were still trembling, the wind trying to turn it inside out, but they were able to catch the wind and to make the ship slide the muddy green waters away from the Scorch shores. Nikteb didn't stop chanting even if they heavily set the reverse course, though there was no danger in the open sea: Nikteb wasn't sure what they awakened wouldn't follow them further and waited, singing the galdr till they got into the deep bright blue waters of the Inner Sea, bearing no trace of the sudden storm.

Only then Nikteb silenced and let herself hold the breath. She grabbed the staff with both hands as it was the only thing preventing her from falling. Somebody — maybe it was one of Zathan's men — accompanied her to the captain's cabin, Nikteb's arms and head shaking like an old woman's. Nikteb threw her staff on the floor and hardly came to the bed, curling onto its silk coverings and satin clothing, still more rural than in the palace of her childhood, but obviously more tender than the beddings she was used sleeping on in her wonderings. A thought of the sleep filled Nikteb with chagrin. If only she could only sleep! But she knew she shouldn't sleep near those shores, bringing nightmares and terrible daydreams, stealing her power.

The door creaked, it must be Zathan entering. He sat on the bed there Nikteb writhed; she felt his heavy hand on her head, his fingers sliding through her hair.

"I admit, I didn't believe you — I needed to check," Zathan said. Nikteb heard his voice as though from the distance, sounding from a deep, echoing barrel. "You didn't lie to me. It's good."

"If I lied, you would kill me," reminded Nikteb, turning on her back. Zathan reeled her curl on his finger, looking at it as though he couldn't decide if it was a band or a snake.

"A lot of people wouldn't be stopped even by the death," he objected, looking down at Nikteb with his piercing blue eyes frightened Nikteb the most when she first saw him, "if the death stood between them and what they wanted."

"I want what I cannot get by myself," Nikteb touched Zathan's hand and kissed his fingers. His skin was salt like blood, smelling with sea and the sun. "I need you, and I promised you my help though you still don't believe me. I told you my word is the words of a queen..."

"A lot of queens are roaming the ports of the Inner Sea," Zathan caressed Nikteb's mouth with his fingers, pressing it open, but Nikteb showed her teeth, blackened with the juice of the night tree, which bitter taste helped the witches of the North talk to their mothers, whose bodies rotted under the altar stones. "They promise the hills of gold just for a man to be on their side. They betray easily and die with no regret."

"I don't know for the others," Nikteb cut Zathan's hotly with the mix of irritation and oppressed anger she always felt, devastated by the spells. "I am a queen, and I am a witch. What I want from this land is revenge, and when I'll have it, I will give you what you want."

"I will have it in any way," Zathan bent over Nikteb, holding her chin. "But I want more."

"You always want more," hissed Nikteb. She wasn't in a mood for love games, she wanted it hard — as hard as it was to stop the storm and lead the ship into the safe waters. "Go and take it. But don't even hope it will be easy."

"Huh," Zathan took out his vest. His face was scarred, just like his chest, and Nikteb knew there were a lot of fresh scratches on his back she left last night. "Funny I don't like it easy."

***

If you like this, you may also like my other original work: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5771851


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